Facility Guidelines Institute
About Facility Guidelines Institute (FGI), a not-for-profit corporation, was founded in 1998 to provide continuity in the facility guidelines revision process, function as a contractual coordinating entity, and enhance the content and format of Guidelines publications that encourage and improve their application and use. FGI publishes "Guidelines for Design and Construction of Hospitals and Outpatient Facilities that is used by Facility managers to keep up with evolving health care needs and in response to requests for up-to-date guidance from health care providers, designers, and regulators. History The Guidelines for Design and Construction Health Care Facilities has a long history as a federal and privately written document. The original General Standards appeared in the Federal Register on February 14, 1947, as part of implementing regulations for the Hill-Burton program. The standards were revised from time to time as needed. In 1974 the document was retitled Minimum Requirements of Construction and Equipment for Hospital and Medical Facilities to emphasize that the requirements were generally minimum, rather than recommendations of ideal standards. In 1984 the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) removed from regulation the requirements relating to minimum standards of construction, renovation, and equipment of hospitals and medical facilities, as cited in the Minimum Requirements DHEW Publication No. (HRA) 81-14500. Since the federal grant and loan programs had expired, the federal government had no need to retain the guidelines in regulatory format. At this time, DHHS asked the American Institute of Architects Committee on Architecture for Health (AIA/CAH) to form an advisory group to work with, and be funded by, the Public Health Service for the next revision. When the revisions were complete, the federal government declined to publish the document. The AIA/CAH asked several nonprofit agencies and professional associations to publish and distribute the Guidelines. An agreement was finally reached with the American Institute of Architects to publish the 1987 edition. At this point, revision of the Guidelines would have ended, or the document would have ceased to exist, if three people had not taken it upon themselves to approach the Public Health Service and the Health Care Financing Administration to request a federal grant to fund a revision cycle. These same three people, working with AIA/CAH, put together the first Steering Committee, who in turn set up the first Health Guidelines Revision Committee (HGRC) not under the aegis of the federal government. The members of the multidisciplinary HGRC came from the federal and state governments and the private sector and offered expertise in design, operation, and construction of health care facilities. The 1992-93 edition of the Guidelines was published and distributed by the AIA. In an effort to create a more formal procedure and process, and to make sure the document would be kept current, the Facility Guidelines Institute (FGI) was formed in 1998 with a four-member board of directors. The board has grown over time and now includes eight members with a wide range of expertise. The main objective and thrust of FGI is to see that the Guidelines document is reviewed and revised on a regular cycle with a consensus process by a multidisciplinary group of experts from the federal, state, and private sectors. FGI serves as the contracting agent for the work performed by the HGRC and by the publisher of the document.FGI. "The History of FGI". http://www.fgiguidelines.org/about.php Accessdate 6/19/15 References Links 2014 FGI Guidelines Category:Compliance